The Murder in the Family
by asc12
Summary: When a series of identical murder victims are delivered to the Jeffersonian, the team searches for a murderer who would be 104 years old. Unlikely that is the case, the team searches to solve the case, baring they can all stay together.
1. Chapter 1

_Post season 8._

_Disclaimer_

_Reviews are welcome and appreciated! They motivate me to write more and helps to know people are reading and enjoying. When I don't see them I figure no one's reading and I should stop as I don't have much else to gauge them on. I do appreciate the suggestions and the catches too. I'm not a technical person, I really like to focus on the story so sorry if the lack of detail offends. You're welcome to insert it in your own mind as you read lol._

* * *

The Murder in the Family

By ASC12

* * *

"Dr. Brennan?" A guard asked approaching the platform. Brennan looked up over her microscopic glasses and away from her 862 year old historical catalog remains.

"Yes?" She asked as she hated to be bothered when she was working.

"Where do you want these?" The guard asked having pulled a cart behind him with a parcel on it. Two other guards waited impatiently with two similar carts.

"Cam?!" Brennan called and Cam soon appeared. Brennan went back to her work.

"What do we have here?" Cam asked with a sigh. She preferred her discussion she had been having with Arastoo in regards to their weekend get away.

"I don't know mam, we were just told to bring them to Dr. Brennan." The equally annoyed guard asked.

"Okay, well there's a process to drop off any remains. Did these come from the FBI?" Cam asked assuming that was the answer.

"No mam, they were delivered here. Here's the paper work." He said handing it to her.

Cam flipped thru the papers which at a quick glance appeared to be a run of the mill set of paper work but upon closer inspection she had some questions.

"What's going on, what's with the carts?" Angela asked approaching.

"Angela, do me a favor, run these names." Cam said handing her the papers.

"When did you say these arrived?" Cam asked.

"This morning, the dock was busy, trash going out and shipments coming in." The guard said now keenly aware that something must be amiss.

"I'm not getting anything Cam, these all appear to be dummy companies, though this is very well laid out to look legit." Angela said.

Cam looked at the parcels, red flags flaring up.

"They were scanned mam, they do have human remains inside." The guard assured her.

Brennan's interest was now piqued. "Well if they are remains we should investigate."

The parcels were placed on the tables, a commotion that added Hodgins to the mix of the interested parties.

"What kind of container is this?" Hodgins asked admiring it. "It looks to be pretty old, I'd guess 1930's."

"I'd guess it to be a Lucite, which is pretty remarkable considering it is often brittle and prone to cracking." Brennan said.

With care the group opened the first of the lids to uncover what was no surprise of human remains.

"The victim is male and though there is a considerable amount of decomposition to the skeletal remains, I would estimate he was Caucasian, age around his seventies." Brennan observed. "I do not see an immediate cause of death."

"Are you sure someone didn't just forget to deliver this someplace else?" Hodgins asked.

"No, the dummy papers say that these three parcels were to be shipped directly here. Someone wanted us to see them." Angela explained.

"This body was never embalmed. It would appear this man was murdered and placed in storage." Brennan said. "Based on several key factors that Dr. Hodgins can confirm, I suspect this man was killed roughly some 80 years ago."

"What?" Angela asked. Hodgins came forward with increased interest, now that a conspiracy might be brewing.

"While I need to run some tests I would preliminarily concur with Dr. Brennan's findings."

"Do I want to know what's in the next box?" Cam asked as their eyes all went to the next in line on the table.

They soon removed the lid from the similar box to find another body.

"Victim is male, I would say a teenager." Brennan said.

"He was pretty fashionable." Angela said noting his black boots and what remained of the rolled denim blue jeans. His white tee had mostly deteriorated but a part remained that was still reddish in color.

"I would say this victim was shot in the chest." Cam said observing the stain and then the hole in the tissue.

"This container is newer than the others." Brennan observed. "Based on decomposition, I would guess these remains to be from the 1950's."

"One more box of vintage bodies?" Angela asked.

The group turned to get a preliminary look at them as well and removed the lid.

"Victim is female, estimated age to be her early 30's." Brennan observed.

"I would estimate her death to be in the 1940's." Hodgins suggested and they looked at him questioning his determination.

He pointed to the "v" shaped winged pin on her lapel. "These were very popular during WWII to wear to signify you had a loved one serving in the war. V was for victory."

"I'd agree, her clothes, well, what's left of them, remind me of that style, sort of like a waitress." Angela suggested.

"So these remains would post date the previous one by ten years but after the young male." Cam surmised.

"So we have an old guy from the 30's, a woman in her 30's from the 40's and a teenager from the 50's." Hodgins said.

"Sounds like a mystery." Angela said and found herself somewhat detached from the murders due to their distance in the past.

"Did someone say mystery or murder?" Booth asked approaching the platform. Once he saw the bodies he was surprised. "Hey don't you people even call me anymore?"

"Sorry Booth, we just received these and were doing preliminary work." Brennan explained.

"Well I'm guessing lunch is off." Booth said looking at them. "What do we have, enough for a case?"

"The bodies are from 1930-1950." Hodgins explained.

"Oh, so this is like a Jeffersonian thing." He said bummed there was no case.

"Except they were all delivered, today, with dummy paperwork." Angela offered.

"Now that my friend!" Booth said excitedly. "Sounds like a case."

"Yeah, but who drops off bodies from over a half a century ago?" Angela pondered.

"I guess that's the mystery and the murder." Brennan suggested going back to the bodies.

"So it is actually murder." Booth asked to clarify though he had enough to go on with just the dummy paperwork, murder helped, for it to be a real case.

"The young male from the 50's was definitely shot." Cam said examining him again.

"I think the old guy here was stabbed." Hodgins said examining that body. "I see a rip in the clothing and some nicks on the bones." Arastoo joined them on the platform and examined them as well.

"Yes, I would at this point suggest he was stabbed, by a pretty long knife too." Arastoo suggested.

"And what about her?" Booth asked pointing to the body Brennan was examining.

"After examining…" Brennan began.

"Bones?" Booth asked in a tone that suggested she could skip the expensive medical mumbo jumbo.

Brennan sighed. "She was strangled."

"Isn't that a sign of passion or something?" Booth asked.

"Well we don't know enough of these bodies to know much of anything for sure." Brennan said keeping booth from jumping to conclusions. "We will need some identification."

"I'll get on that." Angela said turning to gather her camera.

"This should help." Hodgins said pulling a leather wallet from the old man's pocket.

"Chester Winfield." Angela read on his id card. "He was born in 1859."

"These remains seem in pretty good shape." Booth observed.

"Yes." Cam agreed. "It looks like someone preserved them in the perfect climate."

"Another mystery." Hodgins said continuing to work.

"So let me get this straight." Booth said writing the facts down. "Someone killed these people, all ten years apart?"

"Looks that way." Cam said.

"And then waited until now to send their bodies here?" Booth asked.

"Also, looks that way." Cam said again.

"So suggesting this person was even 16 at the time of the first murder, and assuming that was around 1930…" Booth began.

"That's a lot of assumptions Booth." Brennan said uncomfortable with such a course of suggestions.

"Point is if the murder sent them over he would have been born in about 1914 if he were even 16 so he's what, a hundred now?" Booth explained.

"Maybe someone found them and wanted to get rid of them. Like if they were in a basement of a house and didn't want it to hurt them selling it?" Angela suggested.

"Then why do such extensive work to hide the drop off with the paper work. They could have just dumped them." Hodgins suggested.

"Right, they wanted us to get these." Cam said. "And I not trying to discriminate the elderly, but I have a hard time finding a 100 year old person making up dummy documents on a computer."

"Wow." Hodgins said out loud. "This is weird."

They all looked at him with a _'you think?'_ look on their faces and they went back to work.

"Okay, well call me as soon as you get some ID's or more information." Booth said turning to leave. "I'd heading back to the office to find out what baby boy shrink has to think about this."


	2. Chapter 2

2.

Booth walked in Sweets office with a bag of food but found no shrink. Booth looked around a moment and knowing the door was open that Sweets couldn't be far. Booth sat the food down on the table and went to Sweets desk to pick up pen and paper to leave a note when a letter caught his attention.

"Did we switch offices?" Sweets asked jokingly.

"Hey Sweets." Booth said looking away from the letter. He wanted to ignore it though it was on his mind. "Bones couldn't do lunch, thought you might."

"Sure." Sweets said sitting on the couch to open the bag. Booth walked over to join him. "What do I owe you for lunch Booth?"

"Nothing, no big deal." Booth said sitting down across from Sweets.

"Everything okay Booth? You're pretty quiet."

"I was going to leave you a note, thought you weren't here. Why didn't you tell me about the job offer?"

Sweets stopped before he could take a bite and sighed.

"Sweets?" Booth asked again. He didn't like being a) surprised by news and b) the last to know.

"It's just an offer Booth." Sweets said trying to curb the question.

"The letter read like it was a pretty serious, and lucrative one." Booth added.

"Isn't it a crime to read someone's mail?" Sweets asked.

"Only to open it, you left it out in the open." Booth said.

"Yeah, it was a reminder to respond to it."

"I didn't know you were looking for another job." Booth asked, he hadn't even touched his take out box yet. He didn't know why it bothered him so much, the idea of Sweets picking up and moving to Chicago for some other job.

"I wasn't, it just found me." Sweets said trying to act comfortable with the conversation. "It's one of the hazards of working with such a successful group of people, you get offers."

"You've gotten other offers before?" Booth asked surprised.

"Yeah, but they weren't right for me." Sweets said.

"Is this one?" Booth was really pressing the issue, he didn't like for things to be up in the air. He liked answers, solid, concrete answers.

"I don't know, that's why I hadn't responded yet." Sweets said and he knew this answer wasn't enough for Booth. "I'm not unhappy Booth, it's just, life hasn't really changed much for me here. I was just considering something new, new surroundings, new you know, women to meet, have a life or something like that."

"You have a life here Sweets, you have us."

"Yes, and all of you have lives, I have an apartment and an ex-girlfriend and books and cases. I'm not complaining Booth, I just want a little more than that."

Booth couldn't argue that with a beautiful wife, baby, house, career, it didn't quite stack up to what Sweets had described.

"Look Sweets, I uh…"

"Booth you don't have to say anything. I don't know yet, I was just, you know, considering the possibilities." Sweets offered and decided it was time to change the mood and the conversation.

"So I know that Dr. Brennan must be pretty busy with something if I am your second choice for lunch."

"You're not…" Booth began but stopped, he was too confused to answer that comment because he still didn't know why he didn't want to lose one of his people. "We've got a case."

"Oh really?" Sweets asked now eating and Booth followed, case talk was comfortable talk. Sweets found it amusing it was easier to eat lunch and discuss a case about death and murder but it was impossible to talk about feelings and eat. _We work in a strange little world _Sweets said to himself.

"Yeah, we've got three bodies that showed up at the Jeffersonian, papers are phony, bodies were murdered in the 30's, 40's and 50's."

"Say what?" Sweets asked pausing from eating.

"Yeah so far our murder is about a hundred years old and is pretty keen when it comes to making fake documents on a computer."

"Well that should make the profile pretty easy." Sweets said sarcastically. "Can't be too many hundred year old computer whizzes who murdered people fifty years ago and then turn in bodies to the best crime solving team since Scooby Doo and the gang."

Booth gave Sweets a look who shrugged his shoulders. Booth felt like something was up with Sweets, maybe he did need something new, more challenging if he was comparing them all to Scooby.

"Well let's head to the mystery machine then Shaggy, Angela's got some ID's." Booth said leading the way out the door.

"So, we'll start with our first victim." Angela said looking around to see that Cam, Brennan, Booth, Hodgins and Sweets had all joined her in her office before the large screen.

"Chester Winfield, age 74 when he died. Hodgins was able to place the time of death in 1933 due to some sort of gross bug deposit…"

Hodgins wasn't satisfied with that response. "The Snapper Beatle was active…"

"We got it Hodgins." Booth interrupted. "1933, we're good. Angela, please continue."

They were all silently glad that Booth had stopped him. There was a lot of information to cover. And the bug stuff was interesting only to Hodgins.

"He was stabbed in the chest from behind." Brennan said approaching Hodgins as an emulated victim. She came up behind him and pretended stabbing him in the chest.

"But it reads there that Chester Winfield was like six feet tall. How tall was the assailant to be able to do that?" Sweets asked and Booth thought that was a good catch though he wasn't going to say it. Something else came out instead.

"I bet that in Chicago they don't have big screens like that." Booth said.

"What?" Sweets asked.

"Never, never mind." Booth said causing everyone to look their way for a moment.

"The victim was suffering from a severe case of osteoporosis. He would have walked hunched over and with a cane." Brennan explained.

"So the victim would have been an easy target." Sweets suggested. "Both with his age and his stature."

"Yes." Brennan confirmed.

"If this was the first victim then the killer would have picked an easy target to try." Sweets offered.

"Poor guy." Angela said looking at the remodeled image of him on the screen with kind blue eyes. She gazed at him for a moment and then moved to the next image.

"Ginger Carlisle. She was 32 at the time of her murder in 1944. She worked as a waitress at a diner. Her husband was serving in Europe as a paratrooper on D-Day. He was killed. I did find a police report that she was missing but it was presumed that she had committed suicide as she had been extremely distraught over her husband's death."

"She was strangled." Brennan added.

"Another possibly easy target as she was a pretty petite woman." Sweets observed. "However by strangling her, the killer was getting more bold."

"How do you mean?" Hodgins asked.

"The killer had his or her hands on the victim's neck, that's close physical contact." Sweets said. "He would literally be able to feel her heartbeat dissipate."

"So the first victim, you found no report on him?" Cam asked.

"No, all of the information on time of death was found because of particulates that Hodgins found." Angela explained. "Chester Winfield was never reported missing or dead."

"What about the next victim?" Sweets asked as though he had already made up his mind about something.

"Cute kid." Angela said brining his image up on the screen. "I found plenty of police reports on this kid, Ricardo Valez. From thirteen to seventeen the kid was picked up on charges of auto theft, petty theft and so on. It's pretty frequent until March of 1957 when it stops completely."

"And how did he die?" Booth asked.

"He was shot in the chest." Brennan explained. Booth looked at Sweets for an explanation on that one.

"I would say that the kid looks pretty strong, he posed as a threat to the killer since he could have attacked him back if it were close contact like the others. This time he just had to raise a gun and shoot at a distance."

"Do any of the victims have a connection?"

"None. They even go so far as to the fact that the kid was in Detroit, the old man was in Maryland and the waitress was in Boston."

"So the killer killed them in 33, 44 and 57." Hodgins said thinking aloud. "He waited a decade to kill each one?"

"It's not that normal for serial killers." Sweets offered. "Generally their murders increase, he was pretty patient and seemed to have some sort of plan."

"So we have nothing more to really go on?" Cam asked.

"One thing to note." Sweets said and Booth smiled inwardly as this is what he was waiting on. "None of the victims had missing person reports, nothing. No one came looking for them. This killer was picking off people he knew no one would miss."

"That makes sense and is sad that no one still would have known if they weren't delivered to us." Angela said.

"Have you gotten anything on those fake shipping papers?" Cam asked.

"No, I've been working on this but from what I saw at first there isn't a lot to go on." Angela answered.

"The packing they were stored in didn't turn up any prints, nothing." Hodgins added. "The killer knew how to hide his tracks."

"And for about 80 years too." Booth said thinking. "Why now?"

"Excuse me." A man said poking his head in the door. "Sorry to bother you folks but I have a delivery here for you."

"Doesn't anyone understand procedures?!" Cam asked going over to the door.

She stopped in her tracks where she saw the guard had three more parcels behind him, three more victims.


	3. Chapter 3

3.

"You've got to be joking." Cam said feeling the moment was becoming surreal. The guard handed Cam paperwork that she immediately handed, without looking at, to Angela.

"More phonies?" Angela asked.

"I'm sure it is."

"Well it looks like the squints have more work to do." Booth said clapping his hands together. "Sweets and I have places to go. Like Chicago." Booth added under his breath.

Sweets gave a Booth a 'shut up' look but it was too late.

"What's in Chicago?" Brennan asked.

"Nothing good that I can think of." Booth said.

"Well, I don't understand the question." Brennan said confused.

"It's nothing Dr. Brennan, Booth was just trying to be funny." Sweets said giving Booth a death stare of 'drop it - now.'

"Something's up." Hodgins said catching on.

"Sweets got a job offer in Chicago." Booth said it with a tone that suggested Sweets was dying of a horrible disease.

"Congratulations?" Cam asked. She wasn't sure it was good news based on Booth's tone.

"I haven't taken the job yet." Sweets clarified.

"But you're considering it." Brennan said.

Sweets was surprised at the tone in their reactions. He honestly figured they would be indifferent.

"You're leaving?" Angela asked with a tone of hurt in her voice.

"Well, maybe, I don't know. It's just a great opportunity to start something new."

"Do you not like the old?" Hodgins asked with a tone that suggested they were all somehow old news.

"No, it's not that at all." Sweets said calmly. "I haven't taken the job, I didn't look for it, it just came to me. Look, I know you guys are all looking for opportunities too, Angela's talked about being part time and having another baby, Cam and Arastoo talk about marriage, everyone has something going on."

"Yes, but those things aren't going to keep us from working together." Cam pointed out.

"Maybe not right away but eventually, I mean, we all have to move on at some point." Sweets rationalized.

"I don't see why." Brennan said.

Sweets was surprised that Brennan was saying that, out of anyone there he thought she would be glad to see him go, or at least recognize the opportunity.

"Studies have shown that the tribes that succeed are those who have intelligent members of their community band together. If we do not have a complete team we will not be able to fulfill our purpose." She concluded.

"Yeah Sweets, if you leave we can't solve murders, people will die and it will be your fault." Angela said quickly.

"Whoa, that's a bit much, and I don't think that's the case. And besides, the FBI would provide a great profiler to replace me."

"But it won't be you." Cam pointed out.

"You've already lined up a replacement?" Booth said softly realizing what Sweets had really said.

Sweets stuck his hands in his pocket like a kid in trouble. "I looked over some personnel, I would want you guys to have someone to work with who was top notch."

"Oh." They seemed to collectively say as though they knew the answer had been said.

"Look…" Sweets started to say to try again but he was cut off by Cam.

"We really need to get to these new remains. We do have a killer to catch after all." She added and left the room with most of them to follow.

Sweets looked at Booth. "Why did you have to tell them?"

"Because you weren't going to."

"For good reason!" Sweets said exasperated.

"Really? Me too, I had good reasons too."

"Which are?"

"You really can't see the good reasons?" Booth asked exasperated as well.

"What are you talking about?" Sweets asked. Booth was disappointed.

"Come on let's go see what they've found." Booth said leaving the room. "Deserter." He added.

"I heard that."

"Good."

"What do we have here?" Booth asked ascending the platform with Sweets following.

"We have three more sets of remains." Brennan explained. "The first victim here is a female, I would say teens or early twenties, Caucasian. I do not see an immediate cause of death."

"Why does she look like that?" Sweets asked.

"She was not embalmed so the bodies are mummified." Brennan explained. "Now the next victim is a male in his mid to late twenties. He is African American. He appears to have a great deal of blunt force trauma to his chest cavity."

"He was hit with something?" Booth asked.

"Yes, but something very large and with a great deal of force." Brennan explained as she continued to examine.

"The last victim is a male, Caucasian, in his mid to late forties." Brennan said. As you can see his remains have been very badly burned."

"Is that pre or post mortem?" Cam asked coming closer.

"It appears…." Brennan said as she examined further. "Pre mortem."

"Dr. Brennan, did you see this?" Arastoo asked as he examined the shoulder of that victim.

Dr. Brennan took a magnifier to look closer.

"An excellent find Dr. Vaziri." She said. "It appears to be a marking, added after the victim was burned."

"What is it of?" Angela asked leaning forward.

"It appears to be an 8." Arastoo said as the image appeared on the screen for all to see. "Is he the eighth victim?"

"No, it's not, it's the symbol for infinity." Cam corrected.

"Why would that be added post mortem the victim? Hodgins asked.

"Do the others have it?" Booth asked.

"Did we check?" Cam asked. "I hadn't removed the clothing, the mummified remains are very fragile."

"We need to check all of the remains." Brennan said as she, Hodgins, Cam and Arastoo continued to do so.

"Let's just let them peek at stuff like that with their rubber gloves." Angela said stepping back to stand with Sweets and Booth.

They watched as the squints removed the fabric from the shoulders of the victim's clothing.

"Affirmative." Cam said looking at Chester Winfield and Ginger Carlisle.

"Same on the greaser kid." Hodgins added.

"It looks like they all have it." Arastoo confirmed with the bodies he had.

"How did we miss that?" Cam asked mostly to herself.

"Maybe we were distracted." Booth said looking at Sweets as though it were his fault.

"We have processed several bodies in a short amount of time. Based on the fragile state of the remains we did not remove the clothing." She said rationally.

"It's okay Bones, I didn't mean you. It was a strange sort of find." Booth added.

"So the killer is making artwork of the victims too." Hodgins said taking his gloves off. It was getting late and they were all getting tired.

"The killer is adding a specific symbol though." Sweets added. "Infinity."

"He intends to keep going?" Cam asked.

"On and on forever." Sweets suggested.

"These clothes don't look as old as the other ones." Angela said while photographing them.

"Yeah, I would agree, oh, look here." Hodgins said finding another wallet in the man's pocket. "Girls should be like guys and always carry wallets."

Angela rolled her eyes. "Who is he?"

"Darren Rogers. His license expired in 1965. Based on his clothing too, I'm guessing he died sometime in the 60's." Hodgins said still going thru his wallet.

"I've seen this kind of trauma before." Arastoo said looking at the man. "I think he was hit by a car."

"That would make sense." Cam said accessing the injuries.

"And maybe I know why." Hodgins said holding out a photo of Rogers with a white woman. "This was the sixties, the height of the civil rights movement and he was married to a white woman. That would have caused a stir. He was living in Alabama too according to his license."

"So based on the time line we've seen, the first three victims from the 30's, 40's, and 50's, and this victim is from the 60's…" Arastoo began.

"Right, then this gal, who does look a bit like a hippy, could have died in the seventies." Hodgins added.

"I would feel comfortable dating her decomposition from roughly forty years ago." Brennan added.

"So this guy died sometime in the 80's?" Angela asked standing over the burn victim.

"Yeah and I don't think he's got a wallet on him." Hodgins added.

"If this killer plans on going on forever…" Angela mused.

"Then we've got more deliveries coming." Cam finished.


	4. Chapter 4

4.

Booth and Sweets went back to the office. Most of the people there were heading home while they were heading back in.

"Look Booth, why don't you go home? I'll stay here and look up some things, I've got a few ideas I want to look into."

"I don't think so Sweets, this guy is going to be sending in more bodies."

"Well, not that you'll like hearing this but they're probably already dead Booth." Sweets said. "And they can't be delivered till morning anyway since that is the effect the killer is going for."

"Yeah I've got the Jeffersonian delivery docks covered. No one's dropping anything else off that we won't know about. I really didn't expect more to show up after those first three. I think now we know there will be more."

"Unfortunately I agree." Sweets said. "But until we get some ID's on those victims we don't have a lot to go on, so go home, see the family. Christine needs her dad."

"Yeah, maybe so." Booth said as he turned back towards the elevator. He looked back at Sweets who was already on his way back to his office. Booth realized Sweets didn't have anyone to go home to. If he worked all night, no one would be missing him at home but they would all benefit from what he came up with. He didn't like how that thought sat with him.

* * *

"ARGH!" Angela said giving her tablet ugly faces. Hodgins laughed as he came in.

"Problems sweetie?"

"Don't patronize me." Angela said and tried to smile. "This is just really frustrating." She said looking at all of her data.

"What is, do you need me to do something?" Hodgins asked checking her connection.

"Make Sweets stay." She said.

"Oh, that's what this is about." He said sitting next to her.

"No, it's not, yes it is. I don't know. It bothers me and I'm not sure why." She confessed.

"Well, yeah I like the guy too, I don't want to see him go. He started out as annoying but now it would just be weird to not have him around."

"Maybe I'm just mad because sometimes I think about leaving too."

"You do?" Brennan said walking in the room. "Why? Why would you leave?"

"Well, it's like Sweets said yesterday." Angela said as Brennan came closer. "You know, having another baby and just being a mom."

"And you would be happy with that?" Brennan asked looking at Hodgins and Angela.

"I'm happy with whatever Angela decides." Hodgins said and Angela smiled at her support.

Brennan was less amused with the notion but set her feelings aside. "We should work on the case."

"Yeah, I should have some information, just as soon as I can get this started." Angela said continuing to fight with her machine.

"Well Booth and Sweets said it was easier to come here so they are on their way." Brennan said leaving the room, not all happy with the latest news.

"Something wrong Dr. Brennan?" Cam asked.

"I just don't see why Angela wants to leave." Brennan blurted out.

"Is Angela planning to?" Cam asked feeling like she was missing part of a conversation.

"She was thinking of it."

"You know, change isn't the worst thing, just think, one day I could leave and you could have my job here at the Jeffersonian." Cam offered.

"You think about that too?" Brennan asked surprised.

"I've…."

"Good morning people!" Booth said walking in with Sweets to interrupt them. "Uh oh, not a good morning?" Booth asked seeing the expression on Brennan's face.

"Cam and Angela are both thinking of leaving." Brennan said and Cam's eyes widened as that wasn't exactly what she meant.

"Someday, maybe someday." She clarified.

"Great Sweets!" Booth said exasperated. "Look at what you've done!"

Sweets shook his head in exhaustion. "Booth you know that…."

"Hey guys!" Angela shouted from the doorway of her office. "I think I've got it fixed!"

"Let's see what Angela has." Cam suggested effectively ending the deteriorating conversation.

"Okay, first we have an ID on the female victim. Her real name is Rachael Simpson. Her parents did file a report on her though it went widely unnoticed. Rachel ran away from home when she was 17 to join the freedom movement. I found her thru a facial recognition program but under the name Rainbow. Pretty original for the times huh?" Angela added sarcastically.

"So again with Dr. Sweets theory that her death would go unnoticed." Dr. Brennan suggested.

"Yeah, I looked, her folks are still around so I guess we can get them some closure. She's the first victim that has family I can find. The greaser kid didn't have any family, he must have been on his own." Angela added.

"Any more on the man, what was his name Darren Rogers?" Booth asked thinking of Sweets and his lack of his own family.

"Yeah, I did find his wife, Alice Rogers but she died a few years ago. I'm guessing even she had tried to file police reports on him being missing but they wouldn't do it based on their bi-racial marriage. Or maybe she was just too afraid to. Either way there was nothing there and she's gone now too." Angela said removing his image from the screen.

"Do we have anyone of any kind I can actually question?" Booth asked frustrated as he had yet to do any investigating.

"Well possibly with the last one." Angela said bringing up the grizzly image the burned man on the screen. "This guy is a little different."

"How do you mean?" Cam asked.

Angela continued. "Well the others were pretty much just innocent victims. This guy, not so much. However, our killer may not have known about him when he killed him."

"So who is he? Booth asked.

"Bren found a medical replacement part. I traced the serial number and got a name, well a couple of names actually. The guy was on the move quite a bit and was charged a few times with domestic abuse and then child abuse, like some pretty bad stuff too."

Sweets felt his body stiffen.

"You know what's bad, the kid wasn't even his, it was a foster kid. He had abused this one little boy so badly he had to be removed from the home. From the reports I read it was awful. But that wasn't the first kid the guy had fostered, it was just the worst."

"How could someone do something like that to a child?" Hodgins mused out loud.

Booth noticed that Sweets had paled considerably. Booth's mind tapped into a long forgotten memory of a conversation had years ago he made a connection as Sweets began to speak.

"What was the guy's name?" Sweets tried to sound casual but his voice came out dry and sickly.

"Oh, uh Frank Moore." Angela said brining an image on the screen.

"Excuse me." Sweets said and slowly turned to leave the room.

Brennan looked to Booth whose eyes were cold and hard.

"What is it Booth?" She asked approaching him.

"Nothing." He said under his breath, obviously she didn't remember.

"No, something is bothering you." She pushed on and now everyone had noticed.

"Seeley, what is it? If there is some connection to the case we need to know." Cam asked and now he realized he wasn't getting out of this.

Booth looked at Brennan after seeing if Sweets had come back. He wondered where he went but presumed he needed a moment. He spoke softly just in case he popped in.

"Bones, do you remember that conversation we had with Gordon Gordon a few years ago about Sweets, around six years old, and a life that was a little bit worse than losing at World of War Craft?"

Brennan thought a moment and then gasped. The other three were now keenly on edge with worry.

"His foster father that beat him!" Brennan said in such surprise it spilled out before she could censor herself.

"Wait, what?!" Angela and Hodgins said nearly falling over the other's words. Cam was too shocked to say anything at all, instead she just felt sick.

"Our, Dr. Sweets?" Cam finally said as it was too surreal. "What, what happened to him?"

"I don't know the details." Booth said with a feeling it wasn't his place to share but the can of worms had been opened. And Cam was right, if it had to do with the case, they had to know. He hoped Sweets was okay with what Booth was about to say though apparently Brennan lost patience on waiting on Booth.

"Sweets was in foster care, much like myself but I believe his situation was more physically detrimental. He has not discussed it with us in detail, Gordon Gordon did most of the talking."

"Sweets was beaten, as a little kid, in foster care." Angela said making sure she wasn't hearing things because it seemed impossible to her.

"Quite severely yes." Booth assured her.

"I can see why he would want to leave." Angela said. "I guess we don't know anything about him." The thought deeply saddened her and made sense at all once.

"I think it's just something that Sweets doesn't want to burden other people with." Booth said having had time in the last few years since he first heard it to think of it. "He's not keeping it from you, he doesn't want you to feel sorry for him." Booth hoped those words would be of some consolation to Angela.

"So Sweets was removed from the home, how did he…" Cam began but lost the words.

"Grow up so normal?" Hodgins asked. "And he's like, the happiest guy I know."

"He was placed with an older couple that adopted him, they passed away just when he started at the bureau." Booth explained.

"So he really does have no one." Cam said nodding. "I can see why he'd…"

"Well I don't." Booth said quite honestly. "Alright, we're family, even when you don't have family, we're family. Sweets isn't one of these people who goes missing and no one notices alright?"

"Is Sweets a suspect then?" Cam asked.

"No." Booth answered adamantly. "Flat out no. I don't care the circumstances. He's not."

It was the end of a conversation that for some reason they weren't going to argue with him.

"It's not him." A voice said from the door and they turned around to see it was Sweets, a little more color than before but he still looked tired.

"Sweets, I…" Cam began but he held up his hand to stop her.

"Please, I don't really want to talk about it. When I heard the similarities…" Sweets cleared his throat. "Well I felt a little panicked. That wasn't his name, and that wasn't what he looked like." Sweets looked at the screen one more time as though to be sure.

Brennan still felt nervous and began to speak nervously. "Are you sure, it was a long time ago. Eye witnesses are often wrong..."

"I'm sure." Sweets said closing his eyes as he thought about it and were red when they opened. "You don't forget some faces." He closed his eyes once more as though removing the thought from his mind. "The case…"

"Hell with the case Sweets!" Angela said with nothing else on her mind.

"Please Angela, I'm practically begging you, I don't want to talk about it." Sweets voice was strained but patient.

Angela walked up to him stopping inches from him. Sweets wasn't sure if she was going to hit him or what since she radiated with tension.

"Well guess what doctor shrink, you're supposed to talk about things we have on our minds. And you're not just the shrink you're our friend and…and…" She stopped and hugged him, surprising him. He looked to Hodgins and Booth who just had concerned smiled on their faces.

He patted Angela on the shoulder and she backed from the embrace. "How about we talk about it another time, after the case." Sweets offered and that seemed to appease them. He hoped they would forget later.

Angela turned away from him and she wiped her eye. He was surprised to see such a reaction from her but figured it was from having a son of her own. As he went to look back at screen he felt a cool grasp in his hand. He looked to see Cam next to him who looked dead ahead at the screen but squeezed his hand for a second and then let go, returning to her stoic pose.

"So." Angela said then cleared her throat. "Scum bag Frank Moore, aside from his other activities, he was separated from his wife after his foster care mishaps. No one reported him missing and obviously no one missed him. Which may have been one of the not so bad killings in this series." Angela wasn't usually quite so cruel but she thought of someone like Moore hurting some little kid like Sweets and it infuriated the mother and friend in her.

"Otherwise he was a typical yuppie of the times, obsessed with materialistic things he could own." Angela surmised.

"And the locations of the victims?" Booth asked.

"Again, no correlation, all over." Angela added as she pulled up a map to show the various locations that covered the mainland states.

"So these are random." Hodgins said happy to be distracted away from the dark possibilities of Sweets childhood back to the case. "And over a long period of time, how can they be related?"

"If the killer were say, 16 at the time of the first murder in 1933 he would have been born in 1917." Brennan said doing the math.

"So who else could be sending these bodies now?" Cam mused. She looked over at Sweets to sort of 'check in' on how he was doing when she noticed he was deep in thought. "Thoughts Dr. Sweets?"

"Well, look at the victims." Sweets suggested. Angela pulled an image of each of them - flesh & blood not mummified- on the screen. "They all represent their time period."

"What do you mean?" Angela asked not catching on.

Sweets stepped closer to the screen as he talked. "The first guy, Chester Winfield, it was the Great Depression, he was a banker. The woman, uh, Ginger Carlisle, the windowed woman of a war vet, the next was a typical hell raising teenager, the civil rights couple, the hippy, the yuppie."

"So what does that suggest?" Hodgins asked.

"I don't know yet. But it seems like something. He could have picked anyone, why them? Why a series of people that typified that decade?" Sweets contemplated out loud.


	5. Chapter 5

5.

_Poor little story, it's been so neglected! I can't leave it hanging so we'll get an ending for it. The Bank in the Heist took on a WHOLE life I hadn't planned on (you know like 21 chapters instead of the imagined 5) and this one got pushed aside. Let's see what we can do for it. I don't know if it will be good, but here it goes... Also here's a summary since it's been so long…_

* * *

**Three bodies show up at the Jeffersonian with dummy paperwork dating back to murders that occurred, one each, in the 1930's, 40's and 50's. They are an old man, a waitress and a teenager. Sweets get a job offer in Chicago that he's considering and greatly surprised when people react to his possible leaving. Three more bodies show up at the Jeffersonian. Now there is one from the 60's-a civil right activist, the 70's - a young hippy woman and the 80's a yuppie who was also a child abuser but turns out to not have a connection to Sweets though his past experiences are shared with Cam, Angela & Hodgins who are surprised. An infinity symbol is discovered etched on the bodies suggesting the killer plans to continue the work.**

* * *

"You're quiet Sweets, penny for your thoughts?" Booth asked as they headed back to the bureau in Booth's SUV.

"Huh? Oh sorry. I was just thinking about the killer. However killed those people is probably not who delivered them, based on the time frame. I'm trying to figure out how we could possibly connect the bodies to a killer, who is most likely dead or elderly." He said rubbing his head at the conundrum.

"All I can think of is the bodies that are coming our way." Booth said at the morbid thought.

"Yeah, but why now? Why wait so many years and then suddenly send bodies in, what's changed, why keep bodies for eighty years and then one day decide to send them in?" Sweets pondered. "There has to be something to that.

"Well, that's for you to help us figure out Sweets." Booth said with a laugh but then thought about Sweets leaving. "You know the mafia is still pretty big in Chicago."

Sweets grinned at Booth's hardly masked attempts to talk him out of the job offer. It reminded something his parents would have tried, if they had still been around.

"I don't see how the DC politicians are any worse." Sweets offered back and Booth couldn't argue that.

* * *

Booth wanted to sit at his desk and be running reports and back ground checks and every other sort of paperwork he could come up with. They had no idea where the murders had been committed not would a half century old crime scene help much. So instead the only piece of paper he had was a phone number for the parents of Racheal Simpson who had most likely long since figured she had died.

These weren't the leads that Booth was hoping for. _How do you find a killer that's practically a time traveler_ he wondered to himself.

Sweets pondered the same question but instead of one piece of paper Sweets had about a hundred. He had everything he could find on each of the victims spread out all over his office. He looked at their pasts trying to determine if they had even the slightest aspect in common. He stopped working on that when Booth stopped in at the end of the day and only then did Sweets notice it was dark out.

"Dead end?" Booth asked as Sweets rubbed his head from his sitting position of sitting on the floor, leaning against his desk.

"About as dead as they get." Sweets said looking at his impressive mess. "How did it go with the parents."

"Not much, they thought she had died years ago. Glad to have closure. No enemies, no leads." Booth said wondering if he should sit down for a bit of not. He wanted to go home though, there was so little to go on it was frustrating.

"Want to go for a drink?" Booth asked.

"Nah, I've got to clean up this mess." Sweets said looking around. "I really thought maybe I was onto something."

Booth wanted to say something to Sweets, something motivational or encouraging that he was still the best there was as far as Booth was concerned. He wasn't the mushy type and that wasn't in all that much of his character to do so.

"We'll get him." Booth offered instead.

"Yeah." Sweets said getting up and working out the stiffness in his back. He felt leagues older than he did a few hours ago. "See you tomorrow Booth."

Sweets was pretty happy with putting his papers away so Booth let him be. Part of him wanted to say something more, it had been a long day with memories not so pleasant for Sweets and thoughts of leaving. Still, Booth couldn't think of a reason for him to stay.

* * *

"Agent Booth?" A junior agent asked Booth after knocking on his door.

"Yes Crawley what is it?"

"I think we have a delivery for you." Crawley said confused.

"Okay, where is it?" Booth asked not in the mood to play games. He hadn't slept well the night before.

"In the parking lot. There are three parcels, addressed to you, in Dr. Sweets parking spot."

"Bodies?" Booth asked knowing the significance of three parcels.

"Looks that way sir."

"How did they get in the FBI lot?"

"They are at his apartment sir."

Booth jumped up.

"Well why the hell didn't he call me?" Booth asked pulling out his phone only to find it was dead. Booth knew this wasn't going to be a good day.

Almost a half hour later Booth arrived at the scene only to find Sweets chatting with Cam and Hodgins. Brennan had stayed at the Jeffersonian to go over the previous remains with Arastoo. They were just about ready to move the parcels back to the Jeffersonian.

"Booth, glad you could make it today." Cam teased him. Booth didn't smile.

"Yeah, I was almost out of gas and had to stop."

It was quickly evident to all that Booth was not having a good day and jokes weren't a good idea.

"Hey Booth, could you give me a ride to the Jeffersonian? I'll bring you up to speed on the way." Sweets suggested.

"Yeah okay." Booth said seeing he had been too late to do any good. It was hot out so he figured it was just as well to discuss the case in the coolness of the car.

"Where is your car?" Booth asked.

"Apparently stolen." Sweets said and Booth was surprised how little it seemed to matter to Sweets.

"Stolen?"

"Yeah, I guess they had to take it out so they could stack the bodies in the space." Sweets said.

Booth felt like he was the junior agent today.

"And that doesn't bother you?" Booth asked wide eyed.

"Nah, it's just a car. If we find it we might get some clues. Besides it had like a hundred thousand miles on it." Sweets said. Booth realized it was something he would have said. _Man, I feel really off today_ he thought to himself as they got in to leave.

"Okay, so no one saw someone dropping off three large casket like boxes in your complex parking lot?"

"No, it must have been sometime after about two this morning. Guessing they were very quiet. The light was busted out in the lot lights. The FBI guys are dusting for prints but I'm doubting we will find much."

"Two, how did you know after two?"

"Because that's what time I got home." Sweets said looking out the window hoping that would be the end of the topic.

"What were you doing till two?" Booth asked but could tell that Sweets did not like the interrogation of his personal time.

"Just working, thinking. Stopped for a drink." Sweets said softly. Booth couldn't help but feel angry that his invitation for a drink was declined. He reminded himself that was being silly because there were times too that he wanted a drink alone.

"Okay, well, anything else?" Booth asked.

"Guess we'll see when we get to the Jeffersonian."


	6. Chapter 6

6.

**The day is not starting out well for Booth. Three more bodies are found.**

* * *

Brennan and Arastoo were clearing the examination tables when the bodies arrived. After some unpacking they had the bodies ready with the help of Hodgins and Cam.

"So these were in Sweets parking spaces, is this supposed to be personal?" Hodgins asked.

"Well the docks were being watched closely here and I'm sure sneaking these in the FBI would be pretty hard. So I'm guessing that was an accessible place?" Cam suggested.

"That's going to be hard to keep Sweets here." Angela said mockingly. "Dead bodies from cases showing up in your parking spaces while you're sleeping isn't a reason to stay in your current job."

"Did we get a hit on Sweets car yet?" Hodgins asked.

"No, Booth is on the phone working on it. Hopefully we'll get some leads." Cam said opening the first container.

"I hear my name a lot." Sweets said approaching the platform.

"We're talking about you, not to you sweetie." Angela teased him.

"You'd miss that huh?" Hodgins said and Sweets rolled his eyes.

He was about to come back with another remark when Cam removed the lid from the wooden box.

"So these are pretty new." Hodgins said looking at the boxes.

"Yeah they all practically match." Arastoo said looking at them.

"The victim inside is male, mid-fifties. I'm guessing this will help in his identification." Brennan said handing Angela his wallet.

"See, wallet wins again." Hodgins teased Angela who rolled her eyes. She had an ID quickly.

"Sam Sparks. He is a salesman for, well, they are out of business now but Techi-Now. He was reported missing by his coworkers in 1997." Angela read out loud. "There's not much else about him, no living family, pretty much a loaner."

Sweets was contemplating something and they all noticed. He'd be Sam Sparks, reported missing by coworkers. The thought drifted thru Sweets mind that if he took the job in Chicago, there may not be coworkers to report him missing.

"Sweets, you know…" Angela began but Sweets looked up and smiled as though calming her thoughts.

"I was just thinking this guy fits that profile, he's a salesman for a technology company. There were like, dozens of those in the late nineties." He said.

"So again, it's the image that typifies that era." Angela repeated.

"Yeah, who's next?" Sweets asked this time helping them remove the lid. He couldn't help but enjoy being part of the team. _Being part of the team _he said again to himself. He worked a long time to get there and for the first time it really felt like he was. Was more money and a better job title worth leaving it?

"Hispanic, I'd say early thirties…" Brennan began.

"I remember this woman." Angela said trying to remember. "She was in photos. Her and her partner started a bath bubble company, right from their garage. I remember because the partner was killed and we went to question this gal but she had been missing. They had some sort of falling out. Oh here it is. Angela Sellers."

"Okay so we have the name of our victim." Cam said. "If Mr. Sparks here went missing in 1997 I'd say he fits our 90's profile, and Ms. Sellers here our 2000."

"Entrepreneurship under the big web bubble of the early 2000's would be very typical of that era." Sweets suggested.

"I'd place time of death around fifteen years ago." Hodgins said while looking at a spider he found. He was about to explain why when Sweets cut him off.

"Wow, so 1997 to right at 2000?" Sweets asking thinking about it. "He was pretty anxious to get the next one in."

"The others were strung out on longer periods of time, some a full ten or eleven years apart." Brennan said catching on to the logic.

"So this is a little different." Angela said feeling like they finally had something to sink their teeth into.

"What's behind door number three?" Hodgins asked.

They pulled open the lid of the box that was the most new, nails that were hammered in the tightest. They stood back as they peered in the box, full of sandbags of different sizes, a note perched on the top reading "FBI and Jeffersonian Guru's".

Brennan opened the note with gloved fingers as they eagerly waited to hear what it read. "Which one of you fits this profile?"

* * *

"Okay so no hits on Sweets car yet." Booth said approaching the plat form. "What? It's not someone we know is it?"

"No, it's just that the killer seems to be very fixated on us." Hodgins said looking at the paper the note was written on.

"Well I would have guessed that, he sent the bodies to the Jeffersonian and Sweets, so yeah, I'm pretty sure the killer wants to get to us." Booth said. He looked at the empty box and realized perhaps it was a little more specifically to them, particularly after he saw the note. He left to make another call.

"Yeah, I need increased security detail on the following people…." His voice trailed off as he left the platform.

"So I'm guessing we're not going out to the movies tonight." Angela said.

"Yeah, let's get this solved so we don't have agents following us around." Cam said and realized how much their work had changed her over the years. Five years ago the thought of a security detail may have rattled her nerves some.

"Well good, we've not got eight bodies…" Brennan began.

"All marked with the infinity symbol." Arastoo added having just checked.

"Well Mr. Sparks here was shot, the wound can be seen here." Brennan said pointing. "And exits here."

"But that isn't a bullet, that's much too smooth, and the opening is strange it's got points." Cam said looking at the marks on the thin flesh that remained.

"It's an arrow!" Hodgins said excitedly. "He was shot with an arrow!"

"What about her?" Angela asked.

"I see no immediate signs of death." Brennan said observing. "However in examining the petechial, I see…"

"I bet she was poisoned!" Hodgins chimed in, again excited.

"I've seen this in cases of arsenic poisoning." Brennan said.

"Have any of the causes of death repeated?" Sweets asked.

They thought a moment then Cam spoke.. "No, they haven't stabbed, shot, strangled, hit by a car, forced overdose, burned alive and now shot with a bow and arrow and arsenic poisoning."

"Well we have the what, now the who." Hodgins said.

"Well we've got it." Booth said approaching the platform and they were stunned.

"You have the killer?" Brennan asked.

"No, no, Sweets car." Booth said. "If there was a print it's gone now. Burned to a crisp."

"Sorry man." Hodgins said.

"No problem, it's a car." Sweets said.

"Good news is they don't cars in Chicago, great transit system." Booth said.

"Listen, Booth…" Sweets began but Booth cut him off.

"Sweets, no, you know I've given you a hard time but you know, you deserve that job. Congratulations." Booth held out his hand and Sweets was about to interject when something distracted him and he stopped.

"Dr. Sweets when someone extends a hand of congratulations you should…" Brennan began and Sweets looked at Booth's extended hand.

"What? Oh yeah, let's wait…" Sweets said in a scattered sort of way as he walked to towards one of the items that Arastoo was removing from the wallet of Mr. Sparks.

"Sweets what?" Booth began but he could see Sweets attention was drawn to something.

"What's that?" Sweets asked looking over Arastoo's shoulder as he unfolded it.

"It looks like a paperback book cover." Arastoo said unfolding it. "Pretty old since the copy costs ten cents."

"Angela, can you run this book?" Sweets asked.

"What's the big deal with a book cover?" Hodgins asked.

"This guy worked for a technology company, it's a little strange he would carry around a book cover for what looks to be a pretty cheap novel, even for it's day." Sweets said.

"I've got it here." Angela said pulling it up. "The Black Knight and the In-Escapable Circle of Death. Sounds like some pretty campy stuff. Huh, it was published in 1931. Pretty small publishing company. They folded since then."

"What does the book description read?" Sweets asked though several of them were wondering why they were still listening in, though that answer would soon come.

"The mysterious black knight roams thru time to commit the uncommitable. With his mysterious ways he is too cunning for the law, even the best! He lingers in the shadows of time to take the souls of those who are forgotten and vulnerable. The black knight will never be caught." Angela read.

"That can't be a coincidence can it?" Cam asked.

"What's that right there?" Booth asked pointing to the edge of the book.

"That's the publisher's logo." Angela said. "Can't see it completely, it's worn on that side. Let me pull it up on screen."

Soon the logo appeared and they saw what Booth had thought he recognized having only seen half the logo. On screen was the infinity logo for Infinity Book Publishers.

"Okay, so _now _we have something to go on."

* * *

"So what this guy goes and follows the book, page by page?" Booth asked as he drove and Sweets sat in the passenger seat reading. Angela found a digital copy of the book online and printed it out.

"So far the murders follow the book." Sweets said while continuing to read. "They don't mention the time line of a decade but as far as the murder weapons go, they do."

"So what, we have a huge fan out there?" Booth asked.

"I don't think so Booth." Sweets said shutting the book. "This book is, well, it's pretty terrible but it's also very provocative and dark. I doubt readers of the time were ready for this. Nowadays it would just be fairly commonplace."

"So this Elton Kline, he was some novelist of the day?"

Sweets shook his head. "From what Angela found this was the only book he published. There was nothing else out there on him. At least under that name."

"So we're following our only lead of asking this guy's grandson about him." Booth said in a voice that suggested this was not something he was fond of doing.

"I think someone planted that book cover in that wallet. They knew we would look and it didn't fit with that victim. Someone wanted us to notice." Sweets said.

"Okay, we'll it's not like we have any other leads anyway." Booth said checking the houses for their addresses. He wasn't too keen on the neighborhood they were in. If it was having a renaissance with these old houses, then no one told the home owners that yet.

"Hey Booth, about Chicago…"

"Sweets, don't worry about it. We'll make do alright?" Booth said and pulled up to the house address they were looking for.

"What's this kid's name?" Booth asked as they got out of the vehicle.

"Devlin. Devlin Kline." Sweets said bringing the book manuscript with him.

They knocked on the door but there was no answer. After a few minutes they could hear sounds inside and waited. The old door devoid of windows opened slowly. The young man smiled broadly at them.

"Good afternoon Gentlemen. May I help you?" Sweets found the young man's attentiveness a bit too out of character.

"Yes, I'm Agent Booth with the FBI, this is Dr. Sweets. We'd like to ask you some questions about your Grandfather's book, if you have time." Booth was hoping he would say he was busy but instead the kid, Devlin, invited them in.

The inside was stuffy and smelled old. Booth figured it was slightly better than the oppressive heat outdoors but mostly it just stunk of old like the old home they were in that wasn't kept up.

Booth and Sweets walked into the room with its old furniture and walked to the antique couch covered in dust. Sweets noticed a pile of books, the same book they were coming to inquire about. Booth sneezed at the layer of dust on everything.

"You don't look like the sort of person who is interested in antique furniture." Sweets said noticing the young man's crew cut and rock band tee.

"Nah, but my father left me this house and it's free." He said still looking at both agents with interest. Booth noted that most people where the FBI came to the door were nervous, this man seemed beside himself excited.

"What can you tell us about your grandfather's novels?" Sweets asked. "I see you have a stack of them here."

"Yeah, he was a great writer man!" Devlin said with too much enthusiasm for Booth & Sweets' liking. "Man he was good, but no one cared. That one publisher gave him a shot but they made the whole thing so campy. It killed it, he could never be a serious writer after that."

Booth sneezed again. He wanted a look around this house. "Hey, do you have a restroom I can use, blow my nose perhaps?"

"Yeah, around behind the steps, like when you came in." Devlin said Booth departed.

Sweets suspected what Booth was up to and would be sure to draw out the questions as he spoke with him, giving Booth more time.

"So Devlin, did you take after your grandfather in the writing department?" Sweets was asking as Booth left.

Booth had to smile to himself. _That a boy Sweets, keep him talking._ Booth eyed the bathroom and kept walking to the back of the house. He walked thru the kitchen which looked to be straight out of Miss Havisham's house in Great Expectations. Everything seemed to be lost in time, untouched in the last fifty years. The trash was filled with to go containers so Booth was pretty sure the kid had little use of a kitchen. He passed by the back door and saw something that caught his eye, a bow and arrow set. _I'm guessing I'd find Arsenic here too. But the kid is like twenty something, how'd he get mixed up in this, this isn't the X-Files. I'm not Mulder and Bones sure as heck ain't Scully, she's a brunette._

Booth heard the front door shut and turned to run back towards it, his SUV was still there but missing from the living room was Sweets & Devlin and only an oil spot where Devlin's car had been out front.

* * *

_So the last box was going to contain Daisy with the note reading "Too close to home?" but I killed her once already so I gave her a break. Sorry this one isn't very good. I think the gap between when I started to getting preoccupied with the other has left me a bit confused with where I was going with it. But it kills me not to finish something so I'll keep going._


	7. Chapter 7

7.

Sweets hadn't been too happy with the fact that the kid's smile kept getting bigger the more questions Sweets asked him. But mostly the conversation got to a crucial point when Devlin pulled a gun on Sweets.

He assumed a doctor had no gun and gave Sweets the option leave without Booth quietly. Sweets opted to leave Booth out of harm's way though he as sure to get an earful from the agent about it later. But then again Sweets felt like Booth was now pushing him to the Chicago job so what did it matter he thought to himself as they raced away in the car.

"Is he following us yet?" Devlin asked Sweets who was driving fast enough to get quite a bit of attention.

"No, perhaps you should slow down." Sweets said half kidding the idiot. He wasn't all that afraid of Devlin, despite the fact he had murdered two people. Mostly Sweets recognized Devlin wanted an audience, he being the only one was secure for now.

"Tell me _Lance, _how is a doctor an agent?"

Sweets noted how Devlin made fun of his name, a name he hadn't given to the kid in introductions.

"So how did you know about all of us?"

"Man you guys are in the paper all the time. The Jeffersonian and FBI, always solving stuff, I knew if anyone was going to get me you guys would."

Sweets tried not to react to the car they were about to side swipe. He waited until after they had to continue talking.

"So how does this whole thing work, how'd you kill people eighty years ago?"

"Granddad, he starts the whole thing. The publishers wouldn't' take him serious right? So he finally gets one and then he's not the author he wants to be. So he decided to get attention. He starts saving bodies, he's going to be the killer of all time. So he passes it on to my dad and then my dad to me. You had to follow the rules though."

"Rules?" Sweets asked noticing they were going over eighty miles an hour in a residential with no sign of Booth behind him.

"Yeah, you've got to follow the book, each murder has to be different, only one every ten years and the job has to define the era."

"Well there's no rush you know, you've got six more years." Sweets said thinking of the current murder and their current speed of travel.

"No, I had one of you picked out. It's the piece de resistance." He said with a grizzly smile.

"But aren't you breaking the rules, don't you have to pass this down?" Sweets asked playing along.

"Man I ain't having kids!" Devlin said swerving around a car. "The game was to play forever, just keep the bodies in this cave Grandpa found and one day there'd be hundreds of 'em. But nah, I want it all."

"Want all of what?"

"The fame man, it was all about the fame for Grandpa. He'd look like a killer for hundreds of years. He and his work would live forever. Man I ain't doing that, this is mine, I'm going to be known. I'll be the famous one!"

Sweets got a clear picture of a disturbed individual, brought up in a disturbed home with strange thoughts of fame on the mind.

"No, I'm pretty sure it's just going to be jail time for you." Sweets said seeing a stream of cop cars in front of them.

The kid swerved to miss them and they were soon down more narrow residential streets but cop cars were now not only behind them but coming down the side streets as well.

Sweets knew this may be the last conversation they were going to have. He recognized that they were pulling away from the houses to road that led into a tree lined drive. Sweets knew Booth was directing the officers to drive them out of the residential areas. At each turn the kid was forced to turn to the desolate road.

"Who was going in the last box Devlin?" Sweets asked as the houses were out of view, only trees now and cops behind them with no cross streets ahead of them.

He smiled back at Sweets. "The workaholic who hasn't a soul in the world to care about him."

Sweets smiled back. "I don't think that's anyone on our team."

Sweets quickly pulled out his gun and shot the kid in the leg. As the kid grabbed his leg instinctively, Sweets pulled on his seat belt just as the car flipped once and crashed to the trees on the side of the road stopping it. A cop car crashed into their car as the sudden stop was too soon for the chase. The additional crash that Sweets didn't see coming caused the gun to come out of Sweets hand an on the dash and around to the kid's side. The kid grabbed for it but Sweets slammed his head in the steering wheel sending him into seeing stars. Sweets reached for the gun again but Booth was at the window with his gun on the kid.

"I got him." Booth said as the kid rolled his eyes in his head, a combination of the gunshot to the leg, the crash and the star gazing.

"You okay?" Booth asked not taking his eyes off the psycho until back up arrived.

"Yeah Sweets said touching his head which had a little cut that covered the big throbbing bump. Sweets took off his seat belt and was pushing against the car door.

"Sweets! What are you doing? Stay in the car." Booth said watching Sweets get out. Luckily a copy finally came over and Booth took his gun off the guy. He took Sweets gun off the dash away from Devlin's reach as well.

Sweets leaned against a tree a few feet away.

"Okay, we're going to get you checked out." Booth said after a few coughs from Sweets.

"Booth I'm fine, just the seat belt got me across the chest." He said coughing a couple more times but then was fine now that he caught his breath.

"Well it's still procedure to get checked out after an incident." Booth said reminding Sweets and Sweets nodded his head in agreement. "We can't send you off to Chicago half broken you know."

"Booth, I wanted to talk to you about that."

"Sweets it was wrong of me to try and stop you, I.."

"I'm not going." Sweets said. "I was going to try and tell you before. I'd like to stay, if you guys will have me."

Booth wanted to throw Sweets into a bear hug and give him a noogie and say "hell ya dummy!" but instead Booth smiled and handed Sweets back his bun.

"It'd be good to have you around."

* * *

_Now it's time for a new one! Sweets encounters a gang member..._


End file.
